Test cricket: Virat Kohli's white arena

There are closures in sports that feel more than just ending. These events feel like a pause in time, like flipping through and eventually reaching the last page of your favourite book, the one you thought would never run out of chapters. Virat Kohli's departure from Test cricket feels like one of those events.

On a quiet day, without any pomp, without an eventful goodbye, and unescorted by the fanfare ardent cricket fans might have expected, Kohli bid adieu to the red-ball game. It is not his retirement from cricket. He will still wear India’s blue, chase glory in ODIs, and continue to shine in the IPL. But for those who followed him earnestly and fervently over the years, this farewell hits differently. Test cricket was where Kohli truly strived and thrived. It was where he bared his soul.

In 123 Test matches, Kohli scored 9230 runs and 30 centuries. India won 40 of the 68 Tests he captained. His batting statistics might feel a little underwhelming when compared with the towering legacies of Tendulkar or Dravid, but statistics present only half the story. Kohli’s hunger for Test cricket reflected in his eyes when he walked out to bat, in the fierceness of his celebrations, and in the way he wore his heart on his sleeve.

You could see it in the way he batted on spicy tracks overseas, in the intensity he brought to every delivery and every single run. When the world was leaning into the convenience and glitz of T20s, Kohli rejuvenated Test cricket with his youthful exuberance and made us fall in love with the long, hard, beautiful grind of the five-day game.

To understand Kohli, the Test player, you have to go back to a bitterly cold December morning in 2006. An 18-year-old Kohli was playing a Ranji Trophy match for Delhi, batting overnight on 40, when he got the news that his father had passed away. The world would have understood had he walked away from the game that day. But he did not. He came back the next morning with heavy eyes and scored 90. That day, grief met grit.

That innings did not make it to the record books, but it became part of the folklore. It told us everything we would come to know about Kohli: his resilience, his sense of responsibility, and the fire in his gut that refused to go out.

That same fire defined his captaincy years later. When he took over the Indian Test side in 2014, he inherited a team in transition. By the time he stepped down in 2022, he had built a unit that believed it could beat anyone anywhere. There were series wins in Australia, competitive tours of England and South Africa, and utter dominance at home. He led not with politeness but with passion and demanded everything from his players because he gave them everything of himself.

There were several standout innings in his illustrious career. While touring South Africa for the first time in 2013 and up against a Proteas pace battery consisting of Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander, Kohli stood his ground. Steadfast as ever, he scored 119 and 96 at the Wanderers.

While being made the stand-in Test captain in Adelaide, he led from the front and registered a century in each innings. In the second innings of the Adelaide Test, he was at his very best, displaying flair and fight. Though India lost the match, Kohli's fearless approach heralded his arrival as the Test captain.

His determined 149 at Edgbaston in 2018 served as an apt response to the critics on English soil. There, he showcased a masterclass in control, determination, and precision. Kohli's unbeaten 254 against South Africa in Pune displayed his pyrotechnics on a ground where he gathered boundaries from every nook and cranny.

Kohli wasn't an embodiment of perfection.  He had his share of flaws. There were lean patches, debates about his aggression, and periods where runs and centuries did not come. But he never made excuses. He held his ground, took the blows, and kept going. He was not the sort who would hide from failures.

Kohli was not always the best batter in the team, but he was always its pulse. He looked his detractors in the eye and silenced them with his on-ground performances.

Kohli's Test career was never solely about numbers. It was about an energy that sometimes felt electrifying and, on occasions, overwhelming. His celebrations were visceral. His expressions were unfiltered. He wore his hunger like a badge and made the five-day format feel cool in a world increasingly swayed by the instant gratification of T20s. Kohli left the format not with flawless numbers but with a flawless legacy. He is not the most prolific Test player of all time but perhaps he is the most visceral of all time.

There will be debates. Some will opine Kohli could have achieved and scored more, or stayed on for longer. Others will argue that his impact cannot be encapsulated by statistics.

But all that aside, as he steps away from the most fascinating format of the game, this is the moment every true cricket fan should cherish. Such was his service to the hardest and purest form of the game. The one that, for a while, had Kohli as its fiercest vanguard.

- Avikal Narayan Shukla